Megan Elizabeth Morris (aka MEM, Megan the M.) is a bonafide professional catalyst and adventurer. As the Ideaschema instigator, orchestrator and autodidact, she is hopelessly addicted to Making Things Happen.I live in the bad part of town. I try to be charitable by calling it the “not great” part of town, instead, because what the hell do I know about the bad part of town or how bad it needs to be in order to get that label?
Maybe it’s bad. Maybe it’s “not great”. Maybe it’s whatever it is. The people with a little bit of money push out the people with less money in order to feel better about themselves — maybe because the people with a little more money pushed them out a long time ago.
When I go for my morning run, I see people who look poor and tired. Their clothes aren’t fashionable. Their faces look blank, turned off. There have definitely been a few junkies. Sometimes there’s a man and a woman, and the woman looks tired and half-dressed, and the man is counting cash. They’re always really skinny — sometimes scary skinny. Sometimes I see other people out running or walking for exercise, but not many.
At first I avoided eye contact with anyone, thinking about my neighborhood’s danger potential and wondering if I should carry a taser or something. Then I decided that was exactly the attitude that created the “bad parts of town” in the first place — and a bit retarded, to boot. I started keeping my head up while I was running. I treated my neighborhood like any neighborhood. I opened up my attitude, and started to nod or wave and say good morning to the people I passed. (Well, except for the ones counting money. If I were counting money, I wouldn’t want some random person to run by and make me lose count. Maybe that’s my reason… maybe it’s not.)
Most of the people I smile at smile back. Many of them say hello or ask how I am out of habit, and then I’ve run past and that brief interaction is over. But it’s on my mind all the time. The elderly Mexican man who hauls branches from yard to yard a few streets over from me is a real person, even if he’s poor and badly dressed with a grim face and missing teeth. I’m starting to be ashamed when I don’t look people in the eye, no matter who they are. Where did this habit come from? It puts up walls we don’t need.
You’ve probably guessed; no, I don’t know where I’m going with this. But I don’t think it matters. It is going somewhere.
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